At present, 31 public sector organisations across Scotland use the Public Service Improvement Framework (PSIF) and facilitators work tirelessly behind the scenes with the sole aim of increasing the level of service being delivered to the public and improving outcomes.
For each and every one of those facilitators, this takes a lot of commitment and hard work. In my role with the IS, I've gained a huge respect for the work being done through PSIF, so it was great to see real recognition being given to some worthy recipients at the recent Scottish Awards for Business Excellence, hosted by Quality Scotland.
Angela Howarth, Planning Performance and Quality Manager, City of Edinburgh Council, and Rebecca Kelly, Quality Development Officer, West Lothian Council, were both honoured with the prestigious title of Ambassador for Excellence.
Angela and Rebecca are among the most experienced PSIF facilitators in Scotland and were rightly rewarded for their ongoing dedication to their roles.
“As true ambassadors for excellence, they have strived to make self-assessment and continuous improvement a key component of the Scottish Public Sector,” read the Quality Scotland tribute.
PSIF, an organisational performance improvement framework, was initially jointly developed by West Lothian Council, Quality Scotland, and Investors in People Scotland, to create a bespoke organisational performance improvement framework building on the principles of self-evaluation and designed for the public sector.
A Partnership comprising West Lothian Council, the Improvement Service, Quality Scotland and Investors in People Scotland was formed in 2006 to continue to develop the PSIF Framework and to manage the roll-out of PSIF within the public and third sector in Scotland.
Since then, the Partnership has gone from strength to strength and more information is available on the IS website HERE.
The Scottish Awards for Business Excellence are among the most prestigious in the country and PSIF organisations had a productive evening by collecting a succession of awards.
West Lothian Council won the Scottish Award for Business Excellence, while the City of Edinburgh Council received a ‘Committed to Excellence’ prize. Clackmannanshire Council’s Business Improvement and Technology Service won a ‘Recognised for Excellence’ award.
North Lanarkshire Council also received a Recognised for Excellence Silver award for its Protective Services department, which fulfils an enforcement and advisory role to citizens in the areas of Business Regulation, Environmental Health and Trading Standards.
Mark McAteer, Chair of the PSIF Operational Board, was effusive in his praise of the award winners.
"It is great to see a wide range of PSIF organisations being recognised at the Scottish Awards for Business Excellence for their commitment to continuous improvement and the delivery of improved outcomes for their communities.
"The various awards demonstrate that local authorities have an ongoing commitment to self-evaluation through PSIF and are now seeing the rewards of investing real time and effort in ensuring they set and maintain high standards in their approach to performance management and self evaluation.
"We welcome this external recognition of the robust nature of the use of PSIF from Quality Scotland, which once again highlights the impact and success of councils in using the framework across the country.
"On behalf of the PSIF Partnership, I would also like to congratulate Rebecca Kelly and Angela Howarth on achieving the prestigious award of Ambassador for Excellence."
My only remaining question is whether our good friend Paul, the psychic octopus with the 100 per cent record of predicting World Cup scores, had the same success rate when it came to the identity of the Quality Scotland award winners?
